


Traffic Jam

by Fangirlwriting



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Bonding, Gen, Mentions of Do You Wanna Hang?, Pining, Sort Of, just a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:26:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23949124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlwriting/pseuds/Fangirlwriting
Summary: If only Jeremy hadn’t wanted to ride with Christine, Chloe wouldn’t be stuck in this situation.
Relationships: Michael Mell & Chloe Valentine
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	Traffic Jam

**Author's Note:**

> Beth_Harker posted some fic bingo templates with a bunch of fic prompts, and I found one I really liked which was ‘The time Chloe and Michael got stuck in traffic together and had to TALK,’ so I wrote a one-shot for it.

“So.” Chloe opened the glove box for no real reason other than she needed to find something to do with her hands and her phone was about to die. She closed it again a second later. “Here we are.”

“Yep.” Michael said. “We are here.”

The car in front of them crawled forward another half of an inch. Michael didn’t seem to find that change of distance worth taking his foot off the break for. Goddammit, didn’t he know you were supposed to move when the car in front of you moved? _Especially_ in a traffic jam.

“How far up do you think this goes?” Chloe asked. “Is there an end anywhere close to here?”

“I don’t think so.” Michael said.

“Well. I guess now we know why Brooke got off the highway at that exit.”

“Indeed we do.”

Chloe tapped her phone. “Um, can I borrow your phone?”

Michael glanced over at her and wrinkled his nose. “What?”

“My phone is at like, 3%, and I need to call Brooke to let her know why we’re going to be late.”

“I have a charger in the trunk. You can plug it in there.” Michael gestured down towards the port where you could plug in a phone.

“I am not going to crawl through your gross car to get an old broken charger.”

“Who says it’s old and broken?” Michael asked, sounding a little offended.

“Isn’t everything you own old and broken in some way?”

“I like _retro_ things.”

“Same difference.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Can I just use your phone?”

“Fine.” Michael snapped, reaching into the pocket of the hoodie he always wore and pulling out his phone. He unlocked it and passed it to Chloe.

The home screen was a picture of him and Jeremy, which was about as surprising as the sun rising in the morning. Michael had his arm wrapped around Jeremy’s shoulders, and Jeremy was mid-laugh. Michael was gazing at him like he’d hung the stars in the sky.

Chloe shook her head. The level of obliviousness that Jeremy could hold in his tiny nerdy body was truly spectacular.

Or maybe he just felt like he didn’t deserve Michael. Chloe could somewhat relate to not deserving your best friend.

“Are you calling Brooke or not?” Michael asked.

Chloe shot him a half-glare before opening the phone app and going to the keypad. She typed in Brooke’s number and held the phone up to her ear.

Brooke didn’t answer, likely because she didn’t recognize the number.

“Hey Brooke, it’s Chloe. I’m using Michael’s phone. We get why you exited now, but unfortunately we are stuck here. We’ll get off at the next exit and get to Pinkberry as soon as we can, okay?”

She hung up and passed Michael his phone back, who shoved it back in his pocket before finally deciding to crawl the car forward the half-inch of space in front of them.

“Why did you even ride with me anyway if you think my car is gross?” Michael asked, gritting his teeth.

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Jesus, let it go. It’s not my fault Jeremy wanted to ride with his girlfriend. I’d be in Brooke’s car if I could.”

Chloe saw Michael flinch at the world ‘girlfriend’ out of the corner of her eye. She glanced over at him and took in his tense figure.

“Michael,” she sighed, reclining the seat back until it was flat. She laid down, which would hopefully be a little more comfortable. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

Chloe heard the wheel groan in a way that must have meant Michael was tightening his hands around it. “I don’t know what could have possibly made you think we were close enough that it was okay for you to ask that, Chloe.”

Chloe sighed. “I don’t know, Mell. I’m trying to come up with something to talk about.”

“You can’t ask me why I’m not confessing to Jeremy and then call me ‘Mell’ a sentence later.”

“You can’t try to avoid talking about having feelings for Jeremy and then mention ‘confessing’ to him a sentence later.”

Michael sighed in clear exasperation. “I don’t know, Valentine. Maybe because he has a girlfriend. Or maybe because it’s been almost thirteen years since I’ve known him and he has never once shown any sign of returning any kind of feelings for me. Or maybe it’s because I don’t want to freak him out and make him leave again. Jesus, why am I telling you this, you don’t care.”

“All you’re doing by hiding it from him is making yourself more miserable.” Chloe said curiously. “You and Jeremy have like, a super bond. Even if he doesn’t like you back, you’ll be able to talk through it and work out some boundaries, and it’ll feel better when it’s out in the open.”

“What, speaking from experience?”

Chloe laughed. “Like I’ve ever had an unrequited crush.”

Michael coughed something into his elbow that sounded suspiciously like ‘Jake Dillinger.’

“What was that?” Chloe said, intentionally lowering her voice in an attempt to make herself sound dangerous. It might have been lessened by the fact that she was still laying back on the seat.

Michael looked right down at her. “Jake Dillinger, you jealous, possessive—”

“I would stop right there.” Chloe said, sitting up quickly, no longer having to try to make her voice dangerously low. “You want to talk about unrequited? We had sex in his _parents_ room on Halloween.”

“Um, gross? Why would I want to know that?”

“Well, how’s that for ‘unrequited?’”

“How’s the fact that Jake is dating Rich now for ‘unrequited?’”

Chloe stopped, groaned, and collapsed back on the seat again. “It’s just a fling. Jake will get over Rich like he does everyone else he’s dated.”

“Like you?”

“Watch yourself.”

“You really don’t think they’re in love?” Michael drove the car forward another inch. “You don’t see the way Jake looks at Rich?”

“Similar to how you look at Jeremy.”

“Jesus, are you _trying_ to make me feel like shit?! If you _see_ it, how do you think it’s still a fling? I think it would be healthier for both of you if you tried to _move on.”_

“You know what I think?”

“By all means, enlighten me.”

“I think you’re jealous Jeremy wanted to have sex with me and not you.”

Chloe took a minute to relish in the way she could hear Michael’s teeth grinding.

“That is so far from what we were talking about,” he forced out through his teeth.

“Do you want to hear about what it’s like to make out with Jeremy?”

_“Chloe—”_

“What, you don’t want to here what you’re missing? It was weird, at least by my standards. He at least seemed into it. Who knew tiny little wimp Jeremy could be so willing to cheat, huh?”

“If Jeremy cheated,” Michael said, clearly seconds away from launching himself at Chloe, and Chloe was loving every second of it. “It was only because the SQUIP told him to.”

Chloe chuckled a little, and decided to lay back farther and leave at that for a moment, when something about what Michael said caught her attention.

Only because the SQUIP told him to? Had Jeremy had the SQUIP on Halloween?

Well… that would make sense, she supposed. The Jeremy she knew now seemed nothing like the Jeremy she had met earlier that year. And Jeremy would be the last person she’d pin down on the ‘cheat on my girlfriend’ list. Even if he hadn’t really liked Brooke in the first place, which she still wanted to pulverize him about.

Come to think of it, had Jeremy actually agreed to have sex with her? She had asked, hadn’t she? Well, she’d been pretty drunk at that point, but why would Jeremy make out with her if he didn’t want—

Chloe sat up, and found a position where she could stare out the window at the ‘My Child’s A Kindergartner’ bumper sticker on the car in front of them. “Oh my God.”

Michael glanced over, clearly surprised by the change of tone, and pulled the car forward a bit again. “What?”

Chloe pressed a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Michael asked, now sounding a little concerned.

“Oh my God.”

“Chloe? You’re starting to freak me out now.”

“Did Jeremy have his SQUIP on Halloween?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Oh my God.”

“Chloe, what the fuck—”

“I think I almost raped Jeremy.”

Michael jerked the car forward and nearly hit the car in front of them, causing several horns to go off at once. “Wh- _What?!”_

“I— I think—”

“Get out of my car.”

Chloe looked over at Michael, whose face was surprisingly blank. She had expected rage. “What?”

“Get out of my car.”

“I— I didn’t know he had the SQUIP and I was drunk, I thought— I thought he wanted—”

“Get the _fuck out of my car!”_ Oh, there was the rage.

“I can’t walk that far in heels, Michael!”

“Do you think I give a flying _fuck_ about your _fucking heels?!”_

“I’m sorry!”

“You’re apologizing to _me?!”_

“I— I’m—” Chloe pressed her hand over her mouth again as tears quickly welled in her eyes and started pouring out onto her cheeks. “I didn’t know he— I thought he wanted— Michael, I _never_ would have— you have to believe me, I— I—”

A horn honked behind Michael again. The car in front of them had moved a couple feet.

Michael leaned on his horn for a good ten seconds before moving forward. “You—” Michael said, gripping the wheel so hard Chloe was afraid it would snap in half. “You _absolute piece of—”_ Michael slammed his head onto the horn. Chloe started shaking.

“So you—” Michael got out, his voice shaking about as much as Chloe now was. “You _sexually assault_ my best friend, and then he comes and finds me in the bathroom scared and drunk, and then I start lecturing him about what a shitty friend he was?!”

Chloe blinked at Michael. “What?”

“What the _fuck_ was I thinking?”

“You—” Chloe leaned back towards the door a little. “Are you actually mad at yourself?”

“Oh, fuck no,” Michael said, turning back to Chloe. “No, I am not talking to you again for as long as I live. But Jesus, that could _not_ have helped.” Michael slammed his head onto the horn again.

Cars all around them both started honking again.

“Oh my God,” Chloe whispered. “I… I’m a terrible person.”

She could feel Michael look over at her again, but she didn’t move her gaze from where it had resettled on the ‘My Child’s A Kindergartner’ bumper sticker. “You…” Michael started, and faded off. “You… _technically…_ didn’t know—”

“No. No no no. Michael, you don’t get it, I’m a terrible person. It’s not just that. I am such a bitch to Brooke. I treat her like… like… like she’s an accessory. I treat Jenna like she doesn’t exist, I spread horrible rumors about people, I— I hurt people, I called your car gross, I— I was such a jealous bitch trying to get Jake to like me back. I tried to convince Christine he didn’t like her and I tried to make him jealous by— by trying to sleep with— oh my God.” Chloe pressed a hand over her mouth. “I am a _terrible person.”_

She could feel Michael staring at her as she started to shake harder. He didn’t say anything for a very long time. Chloe turned sideways and curled into a ball on the reclined seat and didn’t move until the car started finally speeding up again. Looks like they were out of the traffic jam.

Something tapped Chloe on the shoulder. Chloe glanced over to see Michael’s phone.

“Put your address in,” he said. “I’m not taking you to Pinkberry after that.”

Chloe did so with shaking hands, handed Michael his phone back, and turned to the side again.

It took them around half an hour of silence to get back to her house without using the highway.

Michael parked the car and unlocked the door, then looked at Chloe expectantly.

She reached for the handle.

“Hey you know,” Michael cut her off suddenly. Chloe stopped. “The number one thing you should know about terrible people is that they don’t care about being better.”

Chloe couldn’t bring herself to look Michael in the eye. “What does that mean?”

“If you want to prove you’re not a terrible person, you have to try to be better.”

Chloe opened the car door. “Okay.”

“Chloe Valentine, look at me right now.”

She did.

“You can put maybe… 30% of the blame on the SQUIP, okay? You didn’t know about it, and you were drunk. But,” Michael’s gaze turned absolutely murderous. “If you _ever_ touch Jeremy again— and I mean that literally. If I see you accidentally brush against him in the hallway? I will fucking murder you.”

Chloe nodded, not fighting that at all. She shut the car door and backed off the driveway.

She was pretty sure she’d never in her life seen someone drive away so fast.


End file.
